raising partner

[jdeegan]

:P Now that I can finally see what everyone else is looking at, I still have a question. 3♣ shows a club suit and 8-10 HCP according to the information given. Might the 3♣ bid show more strength than that? If so, you should continue to fish for slam. If not, you need a perfecto and ultimately subsiding at 5♣ (or even in rare cases 3NT) is correct. On the actual hand, you have a chance for slam - maybe 30-70 and not worth bidding.

 

You can do almost anything right now since you are in a forcing situation. Even Pass is worth considering. You are in an asking rather than a telling situation. You are also very much in a tactical mode since the opponents are bidding as well. Personally, I would be more concerned with hearing more from partner and the opponents. I can always bid 5♣ later as a fall back solution.

 

Your idea of possibly locating a hypothetical heart king is good, but only one of many attractive possibilities. I guess my new answer is to Pass. It will probably put my partner in an agonizing situation - the downside of that has to be considered. Otherwise, the upside seems unimpeachable. If it goes Pass on my left and partner doubles (I would certainly hope, for penalties), I bid 3NT and let partner make the final decision. Furthermore, concealing our monster club fit for the time being may cause the opponents to either misjudge entirely or else possibly reveal more about the situation than is prudent for their side. I really don't mind the idea of playing in 5♣ doubled.

 

So far, so good. I feel in control of this auction and want to hear more.

[cherdano]

Slam is pretty unlikely to be better than a finesse, I have 14 working points most likely. Partner needs 2 aces and if one of them is spades, a singleton or void in hearts. As it is the slam is decent but not brilliant purely because partner has J♦ rather than J♠.

Have you read other replies in the thread, and looked at example hands other posters have given?

[wanoff]

Have you read other replies in the thread, and looked at example hands other posters have given?

 

I didn't give any example hands but here's one if you like;

 

K10x xx Jxx A10xxx

[rhm]

:P Now that I can finally see what everyone else is looking at, I still have a question. 3♣ shows a club suit and 8-10 HCP according to the information given. Might the 3♣ bid show more strength than that? If so, you should continue to fish for slam. If not, you need a perfecto and ultimately subsiding at 5♣ (or even in rare cases 3NT) is correct. On the actual hand, you have a chance for slam - maybe 30-70 and not worth bidding.

 

You can do almost anything right now since you are in a forcing situation. Even Pass is worth considering. You are in an asking rather than a telling situation. You are also very much in a tactical mode since the opponents are bidding as well. Personally, I would be more concerned with hearing more from partner and the opponents. I can always bid 5♣ later as a fall back solution.

 

Your idea of possibly locating a hypothetical heart king is good, but only one of many attractive possibilities. I guess my new answer is to Pass. It will probably put my partner in an agonizing situation - the downside of that has to be considered. Otherwise, the upside seems unimpeachable. If it goes Pass on my left and partner doubles (I would certainly hope, for penalties), I bid 3NT and let partner make the final decision. Furthermore, concealing our monster club fit for the time being may cause the opponents to either misjudge entirely or else possibly reveal more about the situation than is prudent for their side. I really don't mind the idea of playing in 5♣ doubled.

 

So far, so good. I feel in control of this auction and want to hear more.

From partner's perspective even though you are passed hand, the bidding is still forcing to game and bridge logic should tell you that with a minor suit at the three level 3♣ must show a reasonable chance that a high level minor suit contract will be successful.

It would never occur to me to bid 3♣ holding 5 small clubs and I would need some compensation and more than a minimum to do this with an empty 5 card suit headed by the ace.

After all when you force to game you are not keen for a minus score.

The actual hand is not surprising.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[wanoff]

I do not understand this comment.

You seem to have a great fit and your singleton looks like it is working.

This may have started "like a fairly minimum 1♣".

Do you ever revalue your hand?

With regard to "looking for something truly exceptional" the bidding makes it likely that partner has his values outside of spades and there are only 12 HCP left there.

Would that really be exceptional?

 

Rainer Herrmann

 

Cyberyeti has a point because even with those fantastic AAJ cards, but with one more heart and one less spade, the slam goes from good to below average.

[benlessard]

I think Ill just pass giving partner mostly a chance to bid 3NT. But i can do fairly ok on all of his bid.

K of spades and Axxxxx plus a J or similar where 5C is down and 3Nt is cold seems as probable than a slam hands IMO.

 

If he double (showing 3S) or bid 4D ill bidding 4S (still keeping slam in the picture & hoping hes got Ax in hearts)

 

If he bid 4H (3 bagger ?) ill signoff in 5C.

 

Its probably reasonnable to make a slam try since the K of H is going to be 50%-50% because its a preempt facing a passed hand.

 

However I dont blame anyone for not trying. I think a simple 5C is reasonnable.

[gnasher]

Cyberyeti has a point because even with those fantastic AAJ cards, but with one more heart and one less spade, the slam goes from good to below average.

Let's lose the fantastic jack and the useful trump pips, and just give him the cards we can find out about easily. If partner has xx Axx xxx Axxxx and RHO doesn't double a 4♥ cue-bid, is slam really below average? I think it's about 70%, with most of the 30% being for the cases where RHO doesn't know who would be on lead.

 

But anyway, partner can easily have xx Ax xxx Axxxxx, where slam is about 75%, or xxx Ax xx Axxxxx where it's cold. With either of those hands partner isn't going to raise himself to 6♣. If you're not going to drive slam opposite ♥A, you should at least bid 4♣-4♥-4♠ so that partner can make the decision.

[gszes]

lets use splinter theory to our advantage-----we know p has 8 to maybe 10 power from the

bidding so we have a spade loser and can we make the rest of the tricks owning 26-28

of the remaining 30 hcp??? Normally yes indeed however in this particular case we own

all of the queens and only missing 1 jack so even of p has the best hand possible for us

the absolute best we can hope for is making 6 on a finesse ---- not worth the risk IMHO.

 

What if p has the spade A and nothing else wasted you ask??? we have no spade loser

but now we own 22 to 24 of the remaining 30 hcp and since we own all of the queens

and all but one J the opps have their stuff as ace and kings so once again 6 will depend

at best on a finesse.

 

5c

[Cyberyeti]

Let's lose the fantastic jack and the useful trump pips, and just give him the cards we can find out about easily. If partner has xx Axx xxx Axxxx and RHO doesn't double a 4♥ cue-bid, is slam really below average? I think it's about 70%, with most of the 30% being for the cases where RHO doesn't know who would be on lead.

 

But anyway, partner can easily have xx Ax xxx Axxxxx, where slam is about 75%, or xxx Ax xx Axxxxx where it's cold. With either of those hands partner isn't going to raise himself to 6♣. If you're not going to drive slam opposite ♥A, you should at least bid 4♣-4♥-4♠ so that partner can make the decision.

 

I don't understand your logic 4♥ doesn't get doubled with Kx(x) because it's really embarrassing to stop them bidding a slam that was going off and to concede 4♥x(x)+1 instead.

[DJNeill]

5C. I'm just going to bid what I think we can make. I laud partner for pushing to show his values. I think also partner should strain to bid 2N with a spade stopper, sometimes even with 6C, if reasonable, so that weighs against trying to back into 3N (somehow). Partner is quite limited so slam is 50% at best generally, if it's there at all.

[benlessard]

I think also partner should strain to bid 2N with a spade stopper, sometimes even with 6C,

 

Probably 2nt is artificial or at least not GF.

 

Blasting to 3Nt with having 6 clubs is ill advised IMO especially if you have 3 hearts. That why imo the 3C bidder may still have a spade stopper and 3NT might still be the best spot.

[jdeegan]

:P Playing slam opposite ♥ Ax or Axx is well below 50% (assuming no ♠A+♣A from partner). I was thinking it to be 30%, but the handy dandy Pavlicek suit calculator makes it out to be 40% - again assuming LHO would have made his preemptive bid equally with or without the ♥K. In any case, you know it is significantly less than 50% when the holder of the putative on side king has 7 vacant spaces versus 10 for his partner (more or less).

[johnu]

:P Playing slam opposite ♥ Ax or Axx is well below 50% (assuming no ♠A+♣A from partner). I was thinking it to be 30%, but the handy dandy Pavlicek suit calculator makes it out to be 40% - again assuming LHO would have made his preemptive bid equally with or without the ♥K. In any case, you know it is significantly less than 50% when the holder of the putative on side king has 7 vacant spaces versus 10 for his partner (more or less).

 

If you took the time to read some of the other posts in this thread, you would have seen that several posters have already pointed out that you have a good chance of throwing your losing heart(s) on diamonds so you won't even need a heart finesse.

[jdeegan]

If you took the time to read some of the other posts in this thread, you would have seen that several posters have already pointed out that you have a good chance of throwing your losing heart(s) on diamonds so you won't even need a heart finesse.

:P OK, I can see you might get close to 50% plus or minus a little. Partner might have six clubs and the diamond jack, and no heart lead with the king offside - kind of an unlikely opening lead. Even with five clubs, taking 4♦, 5♣, one ♥ and two ruffs is possible - easy if clubs are 2-2. Of course partner needs the diamond jack or three diamonds with a 3-3 split and no bad trump split. We are speculating on how to climb out of a known 10% deficit with a bunch of mystery hands with features that are unlikely to get in the auction. Plus, the opponents seem to be bidding on some sort of unbalanced distribution. Why bother just to get to a 50-50 spot?

[MrAce]

I have seen interesting replies in this topic, such as jumping to 5 ♣ in a GF auction for us, when opponents has already wasted our space. Telling that 4♣ would be slam force and maybe grandslam. Where do these people come up with this funny (to me) ***** idk. Something sad to hear in expert forum.

 

What stroke me most in this topic was, pd showing 5+ clubs and 8-10 hcp, we have a 4 card fit and stiff in opponent suit which was also raised by other opponent, and we decide to hide the fit ! And then we double and expect pd to bid 3NT, as if this 3NT means % 100 guaranteed stopper, but we pass it anyway if pd bids 3NT , hiding the 4 card fit again, and try to aim for the hands where 5 ♣ fails and 3NT makes.

 

I do not usually agree witth Rainer but he said something that i think is very important about 3♣ bid by pd. If pd has 3235 type of hand, he will usually will not have spade stopper imo. I expect him to hold 6 card clubs, or 5 card without spade stopper. But it even when he has only 5 clubs + spade stopper, the hands that will fail in 5 minor and only make 3NT are very limited, basically losing 3 fast tricks in majors.

 

This is way too expert for me.

[Zelandakh]

I thought this was a pretty obvious 4♣ and am surprised there is so much discussion about it.

[jdeegan]

I have seen interesting replies in this topic, such as jumping to 5 ♣ in a GF auction for us, when opponents has already wasted our space. Telling that 4♣ would be slam force and maybe grandslam. Where do these people come up with this funny (to me) ***** idk. Something sad to hear in expert forum.

 

What stroke me most in this topic was, pd showing 5+ clubs and 8-10 hcp, we have a 4 card fit and stiff in opponent suit which was also raised by other opponent, and we decide to hide the fit ! And then we double and expect pd to bid 3NT, as if this 3NT means % 100 guaranteed stopper, but we pass it anyway if pd bids 3NT , hiding the 4 card fit again, and try to aim for the hands where 5 ♣ fails and 3NT makes.

 

I do not usually agree witth Rainer but he said something that i think is very important about 3♣ bid by pd. If pd has 3235 type of hand, he will usually will not have spade stopper imo. I expect him to hold 6 card clubs, or 5 card without spade stopper. But it even when he has only 5 clubs + spade stopper, the hands that will fail in 5 minor and only make 3NT are very limited, basically losing 3 fast tricks in majors.

 

This is way too expert for me.

:P As usual, your analysis seems correct to me. Fishing for 3NT is seriously problematical at IMPs. 4♣ is evidently the technically correct bid, but sometimes my partners screw up. 5♣ eliminates the prospect of future human error.

[aguahombre]

5♣ eliminates the prospect of future human error.

A brutal statement about partner's competence, IMO. I am willing to consistently bid what I consider the correct bid (here 4♣) and endure the infrequent human error by CHO, in the interest of harmony. If 4♣ is not the correct partnership bid for us, I will listen to what she thinks is the correct call. But, I will not blast her out of the picture.

[SteveMoe]

Do you know LHO's tendencies? Absent experience I would bid 5♣.

As other have noted partner cannot have 2As and 1K. I'd add LHO might be less likely to hold the ♥K than RHO.

Would want a 2nd♠ for a double here (Cooperative Penalty).

[johnu]

4♣ is evidently the technically correct bid, but sometimes my partners screw up. 5♣ eliminates the prospect of future human error.

 

Do you blame your partners when you screw up? I can just image the conversation.

 

partner - Isn't 6♣ cold? If you bid 4♣, I could have cue bid 4♥ and maybe we could get there.

jdeegan - 4♣ is the right bid, but you would have screwed up the auction because you're a lousy bidder.

partner - OK, thanks for your insight. Same time next week?

[Fluffy]

FWIW my thoughts were that bdding 4♠ I would make partner downgrade ♠A and any honor, so he would gladly bid slam if he held ♥A ♣A, however this might also make partner bid 6 with ♥K, but not sure.

[jdeegan]

Do you blame your partners when you screw up? I can just image the conversation.

 

partner - Isn't 6♣ cold? If you bid 4♣, I could have cue bid 4♥ and maybe we could get there.

jdeegan - 4♣ is the right bid, but you would have screwed up the auction because you're a lousy bidder.

partner - OK, thanks for your insight. Same time next week?

:P I am used to playing with players who are better than I am. You learn not to put them under pressure based on analyzing some kind of low probability chance. Partners get tired, so making the game harder for them is not conducive to overall good results. Blasting also can make things tougher on the opponents both in the bidding and on defense.